9:14 A.M.
WESTIN NEW YORK GRAND CENTRAL
212 EAST FORTY-SECOND STREET
NEW YORK CITY
Four men sat in different parts of the large lobby of the Westin Hotel, which was very busy. A hodgepodge of business travelers and tourists moved briskly about as, outside, chaos descended. Hotel security had closed off the entrance to the hotel and several armed security guards stood near the entrance. They had a difficult task—on the one hand, letting people in to find refuge from the active shooters now moving down Manhattan streets—and on the other, being prepared to shoot any of the terrorists if they attempted to enter the Westin.
The four Iranians in the Westin lobby all knew one another. They’d trained together, first in QUDS, then in North Africa and then in Neyshabur, near the Turkmenistan and Afghanistan border, after being recruited by Hezbollah. Yet the four men didn’t acknowledge each other.
Each man was young, early twenties. The oldest was twenty-four years old.
Each man was dressed in casual clothing. No one stood out. Even if they’d been sitting together, they probably wouldn’t have raised many eyebrows, even though they all looked vaguely Middle Eastern.
Each man had spent the morning chopping off thumbs and plucking eyeballs from the sockets of the four governors of the Federal Reserve.
Away from the lobby, the elevator doors opened and a dozen people stepped out, including a short, bespectacled man in a gray suit and no tie. He had dark hair, combed neatly to the side. He was thin, even gaunt. He had a mustache. He had droopy eyes, with bags beneath them, though his overall mien was that of a successful businessman or lawyer. Of course, no truly successful businessman or lawyer would stay at the Westin near Grand Central, but that didn’t matter, for he was only trying to look anonymous.
The man, Rokan, walked to a chair out of the way. He put a backpack on the floor next to him and opened it. Rokan looked up, making sure no one was about, then eyed one of the men who’d been waiting.
The man approached and reached into his pocket as he came close. He took a plastic ziplock bag and surreptitiously dropped it into the backpack. Rokan handed him a plastic card.
“Eight twelve,” said Rokan in a whisper.
Three other Hezbollah operators approached Rokan over the next minute, each placing a plastic bag in the backpack.
Rokan stood without saying anything. He strolled across the lobby with four eyeballs, four thumbs, and an address.
In room 812, the four killers of the Fed governors gathered.
A pair of large duffel bags were on the bed.
In silence, the gunmen took weapons from the duffel bags. It was a mix of guns: three Uzis, an AR-15, a Kalashnikov, a DP-12 twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun, and a bunch of various handguns. The important part of the cache was the ammunition, and each man, after selecting his weapon of choice, found spare magazines and stuffed his pockets as full as he could.
One of the men used the bathroom.
They sat in the room, in silence.
Two of the men, Muhammed and Turan, knew each other like brothers—but they didn’t speak. Instead, they waited.
The one who’d used the bathroom spoke:
“We wait a minute,” he said, chambering a round. “Turan, you go first. We’ll meet up on the other side.”